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re: momma


--- "J. Marie Hall" <fionaeval at yahoo_com> wrote:
> i went on about mothers and their sons or daughters
> (separation of identity) and peter said:
> 
> Really?  What is this based on?  I assume you mean
> something a bit deeper
> than the fact that girls and their mothers are both
> female ...
> 
> -->actually that's really it (at least at the
> developmental stage i was thinking of).  i'm pretty
> sure this is elaine showalter's and/or gail shehe's
> work--it was an idea i heard in a discussion (for
> one
> of my women's lit classes) way, way back so it's
> fuzzy.  

jung bases his theory of personality on it as well. 
his claim is that the incredible archetypal power of
the mother imago combined with the same sex
relationship makes "female personality types" more
easily grouped as opposed to males, who have the
oposing gender of the psychical force of the mother to
deal with.  so (statistically, at least, in terms of
personality types and permutations), i always read
this bit of his to claim that men are intrinsically
more complicated/more difficult to pigeonhole
psychologically (i don't necessarily buy it 100%,
btw).  

 
> little boys are discovering that "we have different
> parts" and therefore free to de-part.  little girls
> aren't discovering that and don't de-part that
> easily
> or frequently.

hehehe... she said "part"  :)

> 
> it makes sense from what i see with tense
> mother-daughter relationships.  it also makes sense
> with the way identity-understanding seems to differ
> in
> men and women (in terms of timing at least).  a
> young
> man is off in the world, often, discovering it and
> himself.  we see a tradition of women preoccupying
> themselves with others and home (which, i'm sure, is
> connected to a lot more than just not
> differentiating
> themselves "properly" from their mothers), a step
> that
> comes usually before moving out into the world. 
> their
> male counterparts are in a faster progression
> outward
> that juxtaposes them to their world (and all of its
> variety) thus teaching them about both.  

agreed... i think male differentiation or
"individuation" is far less reliant (generally
speaking) on family infrastructure than it is so for
females - and i would say that that's true at almost
any age.  a great part is surely societal, but i've
always wondered if it's simply the nature of the
personality of each gender in general.





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